"Competitive bidding" hurting homecare

CUPE Ontario urges next government to scrap flawed system

NORTH BAY, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Aug. 23, 2011) - Competitive bidding in Ontario's homecare system is causing thousands of Ontarians to go without the care they desperately need, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario said today.

"The Ontario government must drop competitive bidding in homecare once and for all," says Candace Rennick, Secretary Treasurer of CUPE Ontario. "The Liberal government has failed to stop the chaos that competitive bidding causes, and it has failed to create the public, not-for-profit homecare system Ontario needs."

The compulsory contracting-out of homecare services was introduced in the mid-1990s by the Mike Harris Progressive Conservative government, which included current party leader, Tim Hudak. The Ontario Auditor General's 2010 Annual Report found homecare in Ontario to be inequitable, insufficient and ineffectively measured and managed.

"The next Ontario government can turn this around by integrating homecare services into the continuum of public health care services and maintaining enforceable standards," Rennick says. "Homecare must be high-quality, universal, comprehensive, accessible and provided by not-for-profit organizations. The local bodies providing homecare should be democratic organizations with local community governance that incorporate diversity."

Today's news conference is part of a province-wide media tour by CUPE Ontario in partnership with the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) to raise awareness about the disastrous competitive bidding model in homecare and to garner support for the elimination of this model once and for all.

As the provincial election nears, CUPE Ontario calls on Ontarians to support the candidates who will fight for a public, not-for-profit homecare system in our province.